As sure as schools paying players next fall, the day is coming when the SEC places five teams into an expanded College Football Playoff.
That won’t happen in 2025, but it may in 2026 when the CFP potentially expands to 14 teams and the Big Ten and SEC push for four automatic qualifiers. Until then, the criteria from the first 12-team playoff remain and the SEC will have to rely on its teams impressing the selection committee. Do wins matter more than strength of schedule? That worries the SEC, which is built on beating up its teams and leaving several title contenders with three losses.
The league nearly had four teams in the fold in 2024, but the committee smartly placed SMU ahead of three-loss Alabama and South Carolina. In the end, the SEC advanced only one of its three teams into the semifinals.
Who will contend for a national championship this fall? The usual contenders remain, but we’re taking a chance on another team that has proven to be fool’s gold the last two seasons. We kept the list of contenders to five teams, but we could easily argue for seven.
Kalen DeBoer cannot afford to miss the playoffs in Year 2. An underwhelming 9-4 start to his Alabama career places the onus on him to lift the Tide into the 12-team CFP this season, and he must do so while replacing a quarterback and refilling several holes along the offensive and defensive lines, the primary units responsible for success or failure in the SEC. Still, the Tide ranks No. 2 in the initial SP+ ratings. The favorite to replace Jalen Milroe at…
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